How I Learned to Unsnap (My apologies to Kirk Read)

As I was trying to think about what
to write this week, I was scrolling Facebook trying to get inspired and to wake
up enough to write a coherent sentence. Well, I know what I’m writing about,
but it didn’t come from my newsfeed, and I just poured my first cup of coffee
and my eyes aren’t completely open yet, so let’s see what happens.

What had come to mind to write about
was weight loss, in particular my weight loss journey, as the common
phraseology would have it. I had glanced over to the books on the corner of my
desk and saw the notebook where I record my daily calories, the amount of
exercise I do each day and how many calories I burn while doing it, as well as
my blood pressure, which is something else I have to deal with. It got me
thinking about what I’ve been through, what my mother’s been through, and what
some of my friends are going through.

For me, the journey goes all the way
back to when I was about seven. I remember there was a particular pair of jeans
I really liked to wear, though I was only allowed to wear them to school, that
had a light blue shiny stripe that ran down the outer seams of each leg. I just
thought they were cool. One day when I went to put them on, I exhaled, and the
snap fastener popped open. I had developed a small belly and could no longer
fit into my pants. I remember finding this funny and I resnapped my pants and
repeated the process several more times and giggled each time. That was the
last time in my recollection that my weight was a laughing matter to me.

I tried not to pay attention to it,
just went on about my life, playing outside, reading my books, sitting in trees
and thinking (a favorite activity when I was nine). I had always been a loner
since I started going to school, as most of my fellow classmates seemed mean
and would often giggle unkindly about me behind their hands. I knew they were
giggling about me, though I didn’t know why, because their eyes were looking at
me while their hands covered their whispered insults. So, I kept to myself and
learned not to trust. I didn’t miss having friends my own age, as I made
friends with older kids in the neighborhood, friends of my brother’s who didn’t
seem to always mind me hanging around. Sometimes they did, then I would either
leave or start teasing them in a joking way, making some of them laugh, and
would often be allowed to stay. It helped develop my sense of humor being able
to keep up with the older boys.

My weight continued to climb and the
older I got the bolder my classmates got in approaching me about my weight and
saying things outright. Nicknames were given to me, the most enduring one I can’t
remember if my brother or my father started it, but they both used it. That one
hurt the most. I couldn’t escape it, not even at home.

As a result of all this, I never had
friends my own age until college, as I never did learn to trust that they weren’t
really just making fun of me. I tried friendship with a few and exchanged phone
calls with a couple of girls in high school, trying to build friendships, but
we never hung out at school or elsewhere. It was a mutual thing. I never
approached them to do so, like all the unpopular kids in teen movies do, who
are so desperate to be part of the group. So, in high school I ate lunch alone
and stayed home on the weekends.

In college I met people who didn’t care
what I looked like, as long as I had something fun and or interesting to say. I
finally had friends I could trust weren’t talking about me behind their hands.
A few years later, I met my first girlfriend through one of those friends. She
was tall and butch and hot, and she wanted me. She was even turned on by me. That
took a while to sink in, but it finally did. After her there were a few other
women who also wanted me, who also looked better than I thought I deserved.

Fast forward to March 2014. My
mother had just died and my then spouse and I were tasked with packing up her
apartment while my brother dealt with the funeral arrangements and other
business matters. I opened her top dresser drawer and discovered a treasure
trove of OTC dietary supplements, of the type packaged to look like and sold
near the vitamins. At least half a dozen bottles of them. It made me angry.
Later, going through her papers I found some poems she had written years ago,
about the time I was giggling about popping the snaps on my jeans, she was
writing about how much she hated being fat. When my mother was a teenager, she
had been skinny. Beautiful face and nice figure. Then, she got married at the
age of nineteen and was pregnant within days. She continued to get pregnant
every two years for the first six years of her marriage, though only two of us
lived, losses my mother felt throughout her life. Somewhere along the way she
developed a thyroid condition and hypertension. These things are just as much
genetic as they are weight related.

I was angry when I saw my mother’s
drawer full of dietary supplements because it meant that she struggled way more
than I ever thought she did. She never once mentioned it out loud, but it was
there if I looked. I started to remember when I was a kid her always drinking
diet soda and eating diet chocolate bars, hardly eating anything at dinner. She
would make sure my brother and father and I each had meat on our plates, for
instance, then only eat the canned vegetable and maybe some potatoes, which
usually meant my father would have two servings on his plate instead of the one
that my brother and I received. I used to resent my father for this, thinking
he was selfish and that he made her do this. Now, I just don’t know. Maybe it
was her choice all along. Maybe she thought that cutting back on meat would be
good for her weight loss.

A few years ago, after I was finally
able to secure health insurance for myself after not having it for several
years, when I went to the doctor, the first thing I said was that I wanted to
be checked for diabetes, something else that runs in my family. My numbers were
off the charts…in the good way. I was not at risk of diabetes. What I did have,
however, was high blood pressure. It was dangerously high, with the top number
being over two hundred. I was immediately prescribed pills and my doctor began
to monitor me every couple months, with me keeping track at home. After several
months of pills and changing and monitoring my diet, it finally regulated. I
still have to take medication for it, and I might always have to, though that’s
a small price to pay.

As for losing weight, I started seriously
on that journey once several years ago, before my marriage ended. I was
exercising, watching my calorie intake, drinking more water, doing all the
things. Then, my ex had surgery and my life changed and became more about him
and his daily needs. I got out of my routine and couldn’t get back on it when
he recovered, and my days were my own again. After our divorce and I moved back
to Illinois and my doctor and I started to take care of me, I started back in
earnest doing all the things. It was working. My weight was dropping, my bp was
dropping, my spirits were soaring, and I was looking towards the future. Then,
I decided I wanted to come back to Oklahoma, the place I had moved away from
when my marriage ended, because I missed all the friends I had left behind.
When finances forced those plans to fall through and I had to stay where I was,
I sank into a mild depression and stopped doing all the things and didn’t care
what I ate anymore. The weight came back like nobody’s business.

Realizing I needed to make changes,
I sought therapy for a little while, but it wasn’t a good fit and it became
cost prohibitive. Instead, I leaned on my friends for support, and they didn’t
fail me. I soon realized that if I wanted to make the move it was up to me to
make it happen. I knew I didn’t want to sink into depression again. So, I
started saving money and doing research on apartments. It took several months
of planning and saving, but I was finally able to make it happen. Now that I’ve
made the move, I am focusing on my weight loss again. I’m monitoring my
calories and exercising every day. One of the things I looked for when I was
apartment hunting was a complex with an onsite gym. As luck would have it, the
gym at my apartment is no more than fifty feet from my front door.

Some days are better than others and
every day I have to check myself. Just yesterday I had lunch with a friend and
didn’t make the best choices I could have. It wasn’t that bad; I just know it
could have been better. That being said, I’m not the type to get angry at
myself for things like that. I was having a good time with a lovely friend,
whose company I greatly enjoy. We had a great day, and the food wasn’t even the
best part.

I know I have friends who are on
their own weight loss journeys, and I’m sure they are all at different places
and feel different ways about it. I’m sure some of them take the comments from
family and friends and strangers and internalize them. To them, and anyone else
in that situation, I just want to say this: tell those people to fuck off! You’re
doing the best you can. Even on days when you think/know you could do better,
you could have made better choices, so what? They’re not walking your journey,
only you are doing that. And you’re not perfect, but you’re trying. and that’s
all you can do. Just keep trying. And if they still want to whisper behind
their hands about you or say it out loud, just exhale and pop open the snap of
your pants and start giggling. At the very least, it will give them something
else to focus on.